Perhaps it's the pervasiveness of the media, in that it's so easy to spout your thoughts and have them broadcast to the world at large by one of the plethora of means available, or perhaps it's the innate shallowness of some people, notably but not only politicians, but the extent to which shallow thinking has spread is depressing in the extreme.

For instance, not only have we been subjected to the collective smugness of the massed ranks of Labour (and some PN) MPs telling us that they will not be accepting their wage rise (for all that most of them have been nagging for years for it and in some instances actively agreeing that it's due) we've also been privileged recipients of a personalised email from none other than Joseph Muscat, telling us that the gent is not for sale.

I got this email at some unearthly hour, telling me that Joseph knows the realities of my life and that's why he wasn't accepting the increase. I banged off a response pointing out that Dr Muscat knows the sum of bugger-all about the realities of my life and I got the usual courtesy of no response at all, which is par for the course in the electronic age, when it is easy to get spam mail but virtually impossible to get an answer to anything specific.

But what struck me wasn't the fact that I was ignored, why should I, a mere citizen, expect an exalted being like Muscat to answer me, but the shallowness of the reasoning that prompts him not to add to his already comfortable existence by accepting the wage rise.

Let's make no mistake about it, the timing of the increase was not ideal and, as usual, betrays the Government's propensity to take aim at its own collective foot and hit the target with unerring accuracy. Now that Peter Mandelson is unemployed in the UK, perhaps it's about time his proficiency in the dark arts was harnessed.

This was not what irked the Muscat fellow, however, for all that in fact he's playing to the gallery on precisely that insensitivity.

No, he had to dress it up with a stirring declamation that he will not be bought, though it is crystal clear to anyone who does not measure things with Labour's own yardstick that no-one with more than two brain-cells to rub together to produce a spark of intelligence would even begin to suspect that by accepting the wage rise, the Opposition would be expected to eschew its Constitutional duty.

An equal shallowness of thinking accompanied Muscat's pronouncement on the Government's decision to appeal a small but important part of the judgement in Grech v Prime Minister, the part only that refers to the Court's conviction that the Government was guilty of political discrimination towards the Grech family.

By branding the decision to appeal as insensitive, Muscat ignored the simple fact that insofar as concerns the Grech family, the appeal was immaterial, in that the fact that the Court had quantified their immeasurable loss, a quantification that goes nowhere to remedy the depth of their mourning but is the only means available to society in such cases, and this quantification was to remain un-challenged, because it was not, even remotely, appropriate to challenge it.

But for Muscat and his ilk, a sound-bite is more important than allowing a degree of closure to the bereaved, if closure is even remotely possible in circumstances such as these.

Do you want more about shallowness of thought?

Here you are: Muscat, in his Sunday sermon, cites Prof. Edward Mallia as someone who is unconvinced of the Government's lilly-white demeanour in the BWSC case. What Muscat neglects to tell us, because it would whoosh straight over the heads of those who prefer to have unchallenging concepts paraded in front of them for their delectation, is that Mallia's objections relate to the environmental aspects of the matter.

But this, of course, does not deter the politician from gathering the academic, willy-nilly, into the fold.

Do you, seasonally and Oliver Twist-like, want even more? Muscat panders to the inherent paranoia that infests much of the blogosphere and beyond by declaring that Labour will not take part in the debate, long overdue as it is, on pensions except in public: no plotting sessions behind closed doors for them, no sir.

Oh great, this means that a debate on a matter of some importance is going to be conducted by megaphone, just like the debate (debate? ha!) on divorce, for instance, when all you get are poses struck and postures posed, with both sides talking at the same time and no-one listening, because listening means you have to think.

But it sounds heroic, so let's go with it.